Taita-Taveta District

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Taita Taveta-District is one of the seventy-one districts of Kenya, located in the Coast Province of that country. It lies approximately 200 km northwest of Mombasa and 360 km southeast of Nairobi city at latitude 3 20" and longitude 38 15". The district covers an area of 16,975 km sq. of which a bulk 62% or 11,100 km sq. is within Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks. The remaining 5,876 km sq is occupied by ranches, sisal estates water bodies such as lakes challa and jipe in Taveta and the hilltop forests which occupy less than 100 km sq. or approximately 10 km² out of 587.5 km². The population of the district 30 years ago was approximately 45,000 persons but this has shot up to well over 250,000 persons with population densities ranging from 3 persons per km sq. to more than 800 persons per km sq. This is due to the varied rainfall and terrain with the lower zones receiving an average 440 mm of rain per annum and the highland areas receiving up to 1900 mm of rain. The range rises in altitude from 500 m above sea level to almost 2,300 a.s.a at vuria peak which is the highest.

There are 48 forests which have survived on hill tops in the district of which 28 are gazetted and are under government protection and management. They range in size from small 500 square metres with a few remnant trees to modestly vast 2 square kilometres indigenous and exotic forest mountains. These forests are part of a unique Eastern Arch range of forests which are found mostly in Eastern Tanzania with the Taita Hills forming the only Kenyan Eastern Arc forest type in East Africa.

The Taita Hills forest hold a unique biodiversity with 13 taxa of plants and 9 taxa of animals found only in the Taita Hills and nowhere else in the world. In addition 22 plant species found in the Taita Hills forests are typical of the Eastern arc forests. The next being in eastern Tanzania. Some of the endemic African violet - Saintpaulia teitensis among others. Within these beautiful indigenous forests, bubble pure clean water to the lowland areas to cater for both human agricultural activities and wildlife in the Taita game sanctuary and Aruba dam in Tsavo East. The lower plains are thus supplied with water by the forests in the hills which are a good catchment of rains. [1]

The capital of the district is small town of Wundanyi, though Voi is the largest town in the district.

Local authorities (councils)
Authority	Type	Population*	Urban pop.*
Voi	Municipality	32,176	16,863
Taveta	Town	52,456	11,495
Taita-Taveta	County	162,039	8,032
Total	-	246,671	36,390
* 1999 census. Source: [2]

Administrative divisions
Division	Population*	Urban pop.*	Headquarters
Mwambirwa	4,927	0
Mwatate	56,365	3,386	Mwatate
Tausa	20,275	0
Taveta	53,038	22,219	Taveta
Tsavo West N.P.	2,733	0
Voi	54,562	15,382	Voi
Wundanyi	54,771	4,055	Wundanyi
Total	246,671	34,042
* 1999 census. Sources: [3], [4],

The district has four constituencies:

• Taveta
• Wundanyi
• Mwatate
• Voi